


to all of the queens that are fighting alone

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Civil War, Cultural Differences, Diplomacy, Gen, Jewelry, Politics, Religious Beliefs, Royalty, Trauma, the K'miri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Queen Thayet of Tortall receives an ambassador from King DusanzhirAnduo, warlord of Sarain.
Relationships: Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau & Thayet jian Wilima, Buriram Tourakom & Thayet jian Wilima, George Cooper & Thayet jian Wilima, Jonathan of Conté/Thayet jian Wilima
Comments: 42
Kudos: 200





	to all of the queens that are fighting alone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic brought to you by my learning the horrendous conditions under which Burmese amber is mined, and kindly looked over by dovebalitang and seori.
> 
> This fic also, somewhat less importantly, brought to you by my inability to stop listening to Ava Max's Kings and Queens.

The Saren ambassador might have been a lowlander, but he was not a stupid man. He hired a townhouse in a splendid street of Corus's Upper City, far away from the city's small but not insignificant K'miri refugee population, and prepared to entertain expensively. As due warning of his intent to present his credentials, he sent an obsequious message to King Jonathan, and a gift for her most gracious majesty Queen Thayet, a small token of her beloved homeland, from the hands of her royal cousin King Dusan _zhir_ Anduo. Both of these reached Sir Gareth of Naxen’s desk intact, accompanied by an equally oleaginous covering letter referring to his great wisdom.

Gary, who still wasn’t used to receiving correspondence from foreign ambassadors, dropped the package on the floor like it might burn him and sent for the queen and George Cooper. Because one of them had an interfering nature (Alanna) and the other one hated King Dusan's guts (Buri), the queen's bodyguard and the King's Champion showed up too.

"If your man doesn't stop flashin' the cash, we're goin’ to find him face down in the Olorun," George pronounced, after several moments of turning the package over in heavily gloved hands and squinting at it. He raised his head, and squinted at his wife and friends instead. "Would you all get out of the light?"

A circle of nosy people retreated. Thayet, arms tightly folded, stayed in her place on the other side of the study and stared out of the window even more fixedly than before.

"It's worth the money," she said, in a tight voice that silenced the room. "The townhouse, the presents, the parties. Sarain is even poorer than Tortall, after two years of civil war. And where else does _zhir_ Anduo have connections? He is probably the only cousin I have left."

"We could always throw it in the fire," George said reasonably. "Say it never arrived. Have him pay larger bribes next time."

" _Bribes_ ," Gary said, indignantly.

"Naive, ain't you?" George replied evenly, and glanced at him hard when he opened his mouth to retort.

"Open it," Thayet decided. "Unless it's going to explode."

"It won't. It's just a letter and some jewellery."

Buri, who had one hand on the long knife thrust through her belt, looked faintly disappointed.

"Could be boobytrapped," George added, as if to cheer her up. "It's not poisoned."

"He wanted to marry Thayet," Buri said. "Dusan, I mean. It has to be some kind of trap."

"I thought you said they were cousins," Gary said, recoiling. " _Marriage_?"

"In a manner of speaking," Thayet said, with a cold fire in her voice that none of them had heard save Buri and Alanna, on the road to the Mother of Mountains at Rachia. She turned away from the windows and stared back at all of them, her jaw set hard. "Gary - he's a usurper. How else could he legitimise his rule?"

Alanna opened her mouth and then closed it again, thoughtfully.

Thayet turned back to the window. "Open it," she said, to a nice view of the rose garden. In early spring it bore only buds.

George untied the package, retrieved the letter, examined it, and held it out to Gary, who wrinkled his nose at it and dug a pair of falconry gloves out of a drawer before gingerly taking it and opening it. 

"It's all very standard," he announced, with a wary glance at Thayet's rigid back. "Begs to be admitted to your august presence, blah blah blah. I'm sure we can arrange something… maybe Jon can receive him by himself, if it would upset you…"

"Oh, no," Thayet said, still burning. "I'll see him."

There was a short silence. George unwrapped the jewellery, and they all pored over it. After a moment, Alanna shrugged, and stepped away. 

"It's amber," she said to Thayet. "I don't know more about jewellery than that."

"It's clear," Buri said flatly. "Set in silver, the way the lowlanders do. Except the little dagger and hair beads. For Roald, maybe. Those must have been done on the way."

"I suppose they would have made a circlet for a princess, and arrived with a betrothal in their back pocket," Thayet said bitterly. " _Zhir_ Anduo's last wife gave him a son, didn't she? What do you think, Buri, is it real?" 

"They wouldn't send you amber from outside the Golden Fields. It's real." Buri whacked a priceless necklace thoughtfully with the hilt of her knife. 

"Maybe they know you wore amber in your hair at your wedding," Alanna hazarded. "Could these be - Thayet, has he sent you your _mother's jewels_?"

Thayet shook her head. Alanna blinked at her, and saw almost as if it were a vision Thayet on her wedding day, draped in a flowing gown of pale jonquil yellow embroidered in cloud blue, strings of irregular amber spaced with turquoise strung through her hair and around her wrists and neck, the amber carefully polished and faceted to show up tiny creatures trapped in it millions of years ago. She had carried those strings, she'd told Alanna, in her loosened stays, all the way from Thanhyien.

"The K'miri don't set amber in silver," Buri said harshly. "And this clear stuff, without Vau East-wind's daughters - um, the -"

"Inclusions," Thayet supplied, leaning her temple against the window.

"Right, the trapped creatures. It's less… um..."

"Doesn't translate," Thayet said, closing her eyes. "They would say valuable. Not you, Alanna: I mean my father's people."

Buri screwed up her face. "Precious," she said at last. "It's less precious to us. But not the lowlanders." Buri shoved her knife back into her belt. "They killed half the Raadeh to get the Golden Fields, where you put your fingers in the dirt and you pick up half a dozen handfuls…"

Her voice had gone terribly distant.

"They will never hold the Fields," Thayet said wearily, "and neither will we, and so it goes, blood after blood." She straightened and sighed, and then added very softly: "I should like him to choke on it."

Gary looked at Alanna for enlightenment, but Alanna was watching Thayet.

“King Dusan or the ambassador?” said George, as if it were just an interesting question.

“Either,” Thayet said, at the same moment as Buri said “Both.” They glanced at each other, and then looked away.

There was a long moment’s silence.

"Have it broken up," Thayet said, resting her hand on the windowsill. "Turn the hacksilver into marriage portions, or seed capital for businesses. Split it among the K'miri girls. And give them the amber, for their jewels."

"All of it?" Gary said carefully. "Diplomatic gifts -"

"This isn't a present," Thayet said, cold as Chitral's Pass. "It is a man come to grovel at my feet with his hands still drenched in my people's blood, as if he thinks their deaths will please me. _Get rid of it_ , Gary."

Gary closed his half-open mouth and bowed.

"No need to ask Jon to deal with this ambassador," Thayet said, a little softer. "Jon doesn't know anything about Saren politics, anyway. I'll receive him." 

George hung around behind the receiving room on the day the ambassador was supposed to present himself, waiting to see something he knew would happen but couldn't quite tell the form of. He heard a baby snuffle, and turned around to see Thayet approaching, Roald wrapped and snugly sleeping in her arms.

She wore an eastern-style gown of sky-blue silk, cut low across the shoulders with a narrow waist and broad skirts, her hair braided up in a style George thought was most likely K’miri. Buri walked half a pace behind her, dressed in red and buckskin finery and armed to the teeth; Thayet wore a brown waist-belt and a long knife, patterned after Buri's, easily within reach of her hand even with the baby in her arms. Amber and turquoise in her hair formed a crown; amber and turquoise strung across her shoulders, carefully arranged.

She smiled when she saw George. "Let him remember just who he's begging for help," she said softly, and George prayed momentarily that he himself never had to beg her for mercy.

He bowed.

"Black God help him, your majesty," he said. "No-one else will."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] to all of the queens that are fighting alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26754616) by [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly)




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